Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many staff are employed to (a) process and (b) issue project licences for experiments using animals regulated by the Animal Welfare (Scientific Experiments) Act 1986.

The number of staff that are employed to process and issue project licences in the Home Office Regulator, under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, are published in the Regulator’s annual report accessible at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/animals-in-science-regulation-unit-annual-reports. At the end of 2023 the total number of Inspector staff in the Regulator was 17.

The Regulator is undertaking a structured programme of reforms. This will increase the total number of Inspectors to 22 by end of 2025. The Regulator will then operate a flexibly resourced licensing function and allocate resource according to demand.